While I could comment on the the delusions of grandeur that some HOA board members get, I think the more important point is that far too often, neighbors would prefer go to officials to address even the most minor issue rather than resolve it peacefully with a little discussion.

Of course it is also a shame that some people would prefer a neighborhood that is steril like an Architect’s rendering of the neighborhood than alive with the signs of people actually, you know, living in it.

dpt

“A neighborhood were little kids can’t make chalk drawings on the sidewalk is not a place for humans.” Amen brother Mark. We used white rocks to write words and draw pictures on pavements. Would the HOA ban this?

I don’t see why ANYBODY would buy a house in an HOA neighborhood to begin with anymore. The dues alone are an utter waste of funds that could be better spent.

Ed Pie

I used to draw with the white rocks, too. My house’s landscaping had tons of them (possibly literally).

I’m not terribly surprised about the HOA policy. As nice as CO is, there’s a weird strain of deference to the environment (apparently urban as well as natural). I read an article once about a guy in Boulder who was reluctant to call Animal Control on the mountain lion hanging out in his family’s back yard because he “didn’t want it to get in trouble.” And once upon a time, I used to work for a company that did a photo shoot up in the mountains for a magazine ad, and my employer got fined for the environmental damage caused by the unauthorized moving of a rock to prop up the product on the slope. I sometimes wonder if they’re farther down the road of “humans are a blight that needs to be contained and eradicated” than any of the states farther west.

Observer

Chalk drawings of flowers and beautiful pictures are now equated with blight. Further, chalked portraits particularly of nature are apparently disturbing too.

I know, why not an experimentation? Why not offer residents, who believe drawings on sidewalks of nature (similar to what Dick Van Dyke’s character drawed in Mary Poppins) as unsightly, an all paid no expense trip to a downtown or slum area covered by spray painted mural’s of non-sensical symbolism? As well, why doesn’t HOA require a complaintant to show, prove, and establish an actual understanding of the meaning of blight?

By the way, where I live, a rose tree in front of my home had been considered to large and was reported. Per city code, a shrub (apparently a category for which my plant was considered under) can not be more than thirty-six inches above the curb. I had measured out the plant and found 40 to 50 inches is where actual blooms flowered (above the curb.) Once I had did what was requied chopping foliage and branches down according to city’s specs, no blooms and no flowers were left. Most interestingly, however, and a few months afterwards, roses bloomed again (a hardy rose plant indeed) at a distance higher than city code.